


electric shocks on aching bones

by aelysian



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Martine dies like the punk ass bitch she is, five times fic, timing is a bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 03:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3234080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelysian/pseuds/aelysian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Root is beautiful in the afternoon light, lithe and dark-eyed and soft; Shaw can recognize that easily, objectively, as she settles on her hips and smiles, her short nails raking along the sides of her ribcage, the sensitive skin prickling and tingling with awareness.  “Who said I wanted to hold you?”</i>
</p><p>Or, five times Root and Shaw don't work their shit out and the one time they do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For [Twit](http://archiveofourown.org/users/twit/pseuds/twit) and [Rain](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chromestorm/pseuds/chromestorm). Thank you for putting up with all of my "Oh my god, I can't do this" whining and for telling me when I was wrong.

**V**     _{And some kind of madness has started to evolve_  
  
She’s shaking with involuntary spasms that ripple across her nerves, tingling in waves that aren’t altogether unpleasant and maybe that’s what breaks past the shell of detached professionalism – not that she knows it at the time.  
  
Maybe it’s the hiss of the clothes iron, the damp heat of the steam that clings to her throat, or the smile she gives her that says _this is going to be fun_.  Maybe it’s the way she hurries in her tight skirt and stilettos to reach her phone, or the absolute ease with which she picks up and slips away.  
  
Whatever it is, it’s a tiny crack in the complete focus that is Sameen Shaw’s mind; a hairline fracture that deepens infinitesimally as she tracks the woman she knows as _not_ Veronica Sinclair up and down the eastern seaboard, and one that she isn’t even aware exists until she wakes to the angry, malicious cousin of pins and needles for the second time.  Zip-tied to a steering wheel like some kind of indentured chauffeur.    
  
What the fuck.  
  
She’ll find herself thinking – and saying – that exact phrase every twenty minutes or so while in the presence of this impossibly irritating woman, but it starts here.  Here, with this woman with a dozen names who cuts into her with ease, seeking and finding the tiny vulnerable spots she keeps so well-hidden.  She’s a fucking bitch, smirking and manipulating with every breath.  
  
She knew then, a hair’s breadth away from filleting her with that little switchblade, that this would happen.

  
  
“Ten hours to go,” she chirps from her perch on the rickety desk, entirely too cheerful for everything about their current situation.  
  
“Are you going to jibber-jabber all night long…whatever the hell your name is?”  
  
If it’s even possible, her vaguely mocking smile grows even wider, as she hops off and sidles over in a loose-limbed sort of way that Shaw has never moved in her life.  She isn’t sure if it’s supposed to be cute or seductive, but whatever it is has her back straightening against the wall (in awareness.)  
  
She tilts her head in a move that reminds Shaw of Bear, and says, “You can call me Root.”  
  
“What kind of name is that?”  It’s meant to be scornful, but the space between them is shrinking rapidly and she’s thinking that it’s been too long since she’s gotten laid and that she can recognize the scent of this woman’s skin.  It all adds up to her voice sliding into a low pitch that only adds teeth to the other woman’s smile.  
  
“You tell me.”  Root is officially _in her space_ , the differential in their heights putting the sharp point of her knee in the space between her thighs.  (She could probably dislocate her kneecap if she tried.)  “It’s a long night, Shaw.  However will we pass the time?”  
  
Her hands are ghosting along her sides, barely brushing the fabric of her tank top, hardly touching.    
  
“I don’t like you.”  
  
Root’s eyes are glittering in the shit lighting, and the feather-light touch on her waist settles into her skin, pressing and manipulating the curve of her body (because she lets her.)  “Oh, honey.  Whoever said anything about _liking_ each other?”  
  
She presses in, sliding her leg up to press solidly against the centre of her; the heat she encounters has her grinning in a way that makes Shaw want to punch her.  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
_Make me_ , is what she doesn’t get a chance to say, because Shaw is ripping the words from her lips and she’s surrendering victorious.  There are teeth breaking the skin of her neck, her nails are scraping dull lines into tan skin, the floorboards are uneven and vaguely dusty under her, and she can’t stop smiling as she watches this woman glare down at her.

  
  
Shaw wakes first, jerking back to consciousness with a start, abruptly, suddenly awake at 0600.  She dresses, silently and quickly in the dim early morning light, shutting the bedroom door behind her.  
  
The fridge contains three eggs that she scrambles in a scratched frying pan and devours in about forty-five seconds.  She leaves nothing for Root.

  
  
Two days later, she watches from between the stacks as Finch locks the door to the restricted section that has become a holding cell.  _A Faraday cage_ , he said, which she supposes is both effective and appropriate.  
  
“I know you’re there.”  
  
She isn’t cowed by the other woman, doesn’t flinch as Root’s gaze seeks her out, and when she walks away, the only thing she feels is a flicker of pity.

 

* * *

 

 **IV**      _{This ain’t love it’s clear to see_  
  
She's wanted her for months, for what feels like years, like a lifetime and might as well be. She's changed, and at times like these all of her previous lives seem exactly that, the memories of all the years before (even the inkling of) Her hazy and distant. Root has been her chosen name for two decades now but it has never seemed more _hers_  than now, fitting the shape of her like moulded leather – finally.  
  
The Machine provides a succinct update on some of their side projects before quieting down to a low hum in her right ear, the pitch indicating Her otherwise silent disapproval of her current circumstances.  
  
She’s never really done this before, not like this, and she’s not sure what the word for it is.  (She has a guess that she shies away from and keeps to herself like a secret.)  
  
Root stretches like a cat until her toes touch the cool spot at the foot of the bed, before curling back up on her side again.  She traces the scar that puckers the skin of Shaw’s shoulder, barely touching, but the contact is enough to make her shift in her sleep.  She bites back a smile, worrying her bottom lip as she carefully arranges herself against Sameen.  
  
She doesn’t wake, doesn’t push her off the bed, or shove a gun in her face, and Root thinks this is progress.

  
  
_Eventually, She stops arranging for hotel rooms and empty apartments when she’s in New York, and that – along with the fact that she lets her return to the city at all – is enough that she takes it as acquiescence if not approval._  
  
_There’s a heat wave rolling through the northeast all the way into Canada, and the suffocating humidity persist into the night, turning the stairwell of Shaw’s walkup into an oven.  Her skin is damp with a thin sheen of sweat well before she reaches her door, making the thin cotton of her dress cling uncomfortably.  It reminds her of her youth, and she pushes the sensory memory away with a knock that goes unanswered._  
  
_Root never knocks twice and when the doorknob turns easily, she isn’t sure what she’ll find inside._  
  
_The lights are on and she’s staring down the barrel of a USP Compact that doesn’t waver despite being gripped in Shaw’s non-dominant hand._  
  
You should really learn to use locks _dies on her lips at the same time Shaw lowers her weapon; she takes in the scene in a glance – the bloody towel and forceps discarded in favour of a means of defence, the sweat that contradicts the ashy tone of her skin._  
  
_“What happened?”_  
  
_Her response is probably sarcastic, but she doesn’t really hear it, too preoccupied with the mess that is Shaw’s shoulder.  The smudged hand mirror, dark liquor, and bloody smears around the anterior entry wound tell her what she needs to know.  She disinfects her hands before taking the forceps.  “I just can’t leave you alone, can I?”_  
  
_Shaw’s skin is clammy to the touch and from here Root can hear the shallowness of each breath.  “You’re going into shock.”_  
  
_“You think?”_  
  
_The bullet is buried in a tangle of flesh and muscle and bone – She provides the right words and precise instructions to guide her hand and Shaw is too busy trying to stay conscious to complain about her technique._  
  
_It isn’t until later, after she’s half-carried half-dragged Shaw to her bed, when she’s washing her hands and watching the half-dried blood fall away and swirl down the drain, that she realizes she’s shaking._

  
  
The handcuffs click shut, the metal heavy and cold around Shaw’s wrists and the way Root smirks down at her practically drips with self-satisfaction.  The short chain linking the cuffs rattles against the headboard as she tests her restraints.  “You know these won’t hold me.”  
  
Root is beautiful in the afternoon light, lithe and dark-eyed and soft; Shaw can recognize that easily, objectively, as she settles on her hips and smiles, her short nails raking along the sides of her ribcage, the sensitive skin prickling and tingling with awareness.  “Who said I wanted to hold you?”  
  
(Despite herself, she tugs and pulls until the metal breaks skin.  Sameen will never say it, but she kind of likes this sort of thing and Root seems to know it.)  
  
She doesn’t say anything more, too busy biting back the sounds Root mercilessly wrenches from her, indulging herself in the other woman and deliberately ignoring her suspicion that _holding her_ is exactly what Root wants to do.  
  
Shaw closes her eyes and tries not to wonder how much longer she can continue to be selfish.

  
  
The next time she returns to New York, she arrives on a midday train to snow and wind that steals the breath from her lungs with icy fingers.  She isn’t really dressed for the weather (yet) but she still saunters into the abandoned subway station turned underground base as if the cold hasn’t left her toes alternately numb and aching inside her thin leather boots.  
  
“Hello, Harry.”  She drops her bag on the bench and engages in her ritual of mutual acknowledgement with Bear (eye contact is usually sufficient) before wandering into the subway car.  “Where’re the kids?”  
  
“I assume you refer to Mr. Reese and Ms. Shaw.”  He gives her that mildly disapproving look as she proceeds to make herself comfortable on an empty stretch of seats, one that she has mostly gotten immune to over time.  “Mr. Reese is attending to his responsibilities with the New York Police Department and I believe Ms. Shaw is due back from Barcelona next week.”  
  
“Barcelona?”  She tries for nonchalant but Harold’s gaze takes on that freakishly perceptive quality behind his glasses that always makes her nervous, the tiny reminder of the true depths of the otherwise unassuming man.  
  
“Yes, I believe our acquaintance from our last run-in with Samaritan operatives issued an invitation to Ms. Shaw to accompany him on some business.”  
  
Root wants to ask Her why She’d kept this from her, but she already knows that She won’t (can’t, she reminds herself for the umpteenth time) answer.  
  
“We thought it would be best for Ms. Shaw to leave the city for a while, given the encounter with her former colleagues,” he says, almost like he’s placating her.  
  
Sameen hadn’t mentioned anything about running into someone from her past and for the first time in a long while she wonders what else she hasn’t mentioned.  The thought of it makes her vaguely sick – she wonders if it shows on her face – and Harold is looking at her in a way that is both pitying and reproachful.    
  
“Ms. Groves.  I am given to understand that there exists an ongoing…arrangement between yourself and Ms. Shaw.”  
  
She shouldn’t have come here, she thinks.  It’s suddenly hard to look Harold in the eye when she feels like the foolish little girl she thought she’d buried years ago.  Root had been a master of the long con and the Machine hasn’t really changed that about her – she’d forgotten that she was always best at lying to herself.  
  
“It’s nothing, Harry.”

  
  
The winter air feels good on her flushed skin, drawing the heat from her until she feels disconnected from her own body and thinks that she can remember how to do this.  She walks to the nearest intersection, finds a security camera and closes her eyes.  
  
Root wishes silently for a new identity, for a new and dangerous mission, for Her to speak again, and embraces the emptiness she feels when she’s answered with silence.

 

* * *

  
  
**III**   _{But the stillness is a burn_  
  
_How did she end up here?_   The department store lighting is garishly bright, bouncing off all the mirrors and Lucite and chrome, and making the rows of coloured wax and kohl practically glow.  She works at a makeup counter by day, drives a getaway car by night, and saves the innocent somewhere in between.  
  
She’s like the Batman of the 99%.  Except less whiny.    
  
This is her life now, and the realization (that she’s come to approximately one thousand three hundred and sixty two times now) is depressing enough to intensify her natural glare and scare off the soccer mom loitering around the blush.  
  
She checks her phone for the hundredth time that morning, wishing and hoping for a message, a number, a fucking link to a stupid cat video, to distract herself with.  
  
A shadow falls across her counter, and she sucks in a breath like air is patience enough to deal with yet another inane question like –  
  
“What do you think of this colour on me?”  
  
There’s the tiniest moment of hesitation when she looks up, a nanosecond when she holds that breath because there’s a very real chance her boredom has finally broken her brain and she’s imagining things.  
  
Root is still wielding a crimson lipstick like a taser, dangling from her fingertips, her eyebrows raised in faux innocence, when she looks at her.  
  
“Please tell me there’s someone you need me to shoot.”  
  
“Sadly no,” she pouts exaggeratedly, leaning on the glass counter and leaving smudges that she will have to clean later.  “Though you know I love to watch you work.”  
  
“Then why are you here?”  
  
“Just looking for something new.”  Shaw watches as she makes the tube of lipstick disappear up her sleeve and she wonders if Root thinks she’ll stop her.  Like she cares.  “What time are you getting off?”  
  
“In an hour,” she says, wondering why she’s volunteering the information even though she knows what giving in means when it comes to Root.  She can practically see the innuendo waiting to fall from her lips, which is why: “Don’t.”  
  
“You’re no fun,” she sighs, picking herself up off the counter and tightening the scarf wound around her neck.  “See you in an hour.”

  
  
She’d implied she would, but it’s still unexpected when she steps out from the employee doors and Root is there, leaning against the building’s grimy façade, the only side that isn’t visible from the street.  It doesn’t show though, as she rolls her eyes when the other woman fairly bounces into step with her.  (It’s what Root expects and sometimes it’s just easier to be predictable.)  
  
“Where to?”

  “Home.”  
  
“That’s forward.  Aren’t you going to buy me a drink first?”  
  
Shaw glances at the look on Root’s face that never fails to make her scowl settle even more deeply into her features.  Her eyes are almost too bright, and if she weren’t sure that the Machine would find a way to keep her in line, she would almost be worried.  
  
“Come on, Sameen,” she says, easily matching her pace with those legs, tugging her into a bar with a wink that promises all kinds of things she’s not sure she wants.    
  
She follows anyway.

  
  
Neither of them are the relationship type, so it surprises her more when Root is there waiting for her after her shift than it does when she wakes up the next morning alone.  The mild relief she felt when she found her apartment empty turns into a knot in her stomach that makes her vaguely nauseated when she turns the corner and encounters her crimson-painted smile.  
  
“Hello, sweetie.”

  
  
They go on like this, mostly silent save for the weird bantering they do, that Root calls flirting and Shaw calls annoying as hell, that somehow always finds them doing what Root calls sleeping together and Shaw calls…well, she doesn’t know what to call it.  And that’s half the problem.    
  
The other half of the problem is the feeling she gets inside her gut the first night she manages to get home without being accosted by anyone.  Her phone goes off just after she steps foot into her apartment, (and for a second she thinks it’s _her_ ) alerting her that her third (first?) job is calling: an irrelevant number that keeps her out until sunrise and finds her stomping into the shower to rinse off someone else’s blood just in time to make it to work.  
  
Shaw has just gotten used to her relative solitude again when she knocks on her door at seventeen minutes to midnight.  She knows it’s her by the way Bear perks up at the sound and then immediately settles back down on the sofa, disinterested.  
  
She expects a smirk, an irritating little quip that drips with suggestion and coyness, even an audacious demand that her will be carried out because it’s Her will.  What she doesn’t anticipate is the worn out woman standing in the hallway, looking down at her saying, “Can I come in?” and _please_ written all over her.  
  
(What she never consciously realizes is that what she’s been doing is waiting.  Her survival instinct notices though.)

  
  
Root steps in and out of her life in intervals, almost imperceptibly – she’s there and then she’s not, and for the most part, Shaw doesn’t really notice until she does.  That moment comes one early morning, when she’s towelling her hair dry and wandering into her kitchen to turn the ancient coffeemaker on, as she glances out into the living room and sees Root standing by the window.  
  
Daylight washes over her pale features, sets off the melancholy that has settled onto her like a shroud.  Shaw isn’t emotionally insightful, isn’t particularly intuitive when it comes to other people or even (especially) herself.  And maybe there’s something about the morning, this morning, that it strikes her.  
  
“She’s not talking to you, is she?”  
  
Root doesn’t try for bravado, for pseudo defiance.  “How did you know?”  
  
Shaw drops the towel on the kitchen counter, her hair falling damp and cool on her shoulders, and when she says it, she knows it’s true.  “Because you’re here.”  
  
She doesn’t try to deny it, and something about the tension that is weighing down the air in the room, that’s tugging at the space between them, and Shaw is refusing to move.  Whatever tenuous _thing_ that seems to draw her (them) to this, right here, again and again needs to stop.  
  
The word, she remembers later, is _attachment_.  
  
“We’re not doing this anymore.”

 

* * *

  
  
**II**      _{Or is it just madness keeping us afloat?_  
  
Root is the kind of woman who flirts with anything that moves, powered by the assurance of a computer geek who grew up beautiful and a pretty thorough disregard for others.  Her overtures and innuendo are another set of tools in her arsenal, meant to be disarming and distracting all at once.  
  
On paper, Shaw can respect that, can appreciate her efficacy in a detached, professional sort of way.  Root gets results, she’ll admit freely, and sometimes it’s fun being the threatening bad cop to her sexual harassment lawsuit cop.  She never really has to contribute to whatever interrogation they have going; between the Machine’s seemingly limitless data and Root’s near-manic energy, Shaw is generally free to scowl and snark as much as she likes.  
  
Their conversations – for lack of a better word – aren’t much different.  On the rare occasions they’re actually in the same place at the same time, Root seems to dial it down, settling for suggestive proximity and intimations of familiarity.  
  
Root pushes carefully, confidently at her edges, pressing in waves against her corners and planes, always testing the perimeter of Shaw’s indifference to tease out a response.  (Any response seems to do; she seems equally pleased with an exasperated grunt as with an almost-convincing threat to her continued ability to breathe.)  
  
Shaw bends a little, gives a little in tiny starts and stops that keep the spark of awareness that connects them flickering, skittering at the periphery.  (She’s not ready to stop whatever this is.)

  
  
The towering, spindly points of her heels exaggerate the sloping gait of Shaw on the prowl, her curves sleek in a black dress that seems to absorb all light, the self-assured tilt of her full mouth a challenge for the taking.  
  
She feels the weight of her unapologetic surveillance as she takes a cool glass of red wine from a passing server and turns to pretend she has any kind of appreciation for post-modernist art.  _“Root,”_ she murmurs into the lip of her glass.  
  
_“Did you miss me?”_  
  
The gallery is fairly crowded, pillars and paintings disrupting her sightlines, so though she spies Reese staring down another acrylic disaster, she has no idea if Root is even in the city let alone the building.  She tries anyway, _“What are you doing here?”_  
  
_“Oh, you know me.”_ She really doesn’t, but she assumes her non-response means that it has to do with the Machine, and they’ve all become a little accustomed to Root popping in and out without warning.  _“Hope you’re prepared for this one.”_  
  
_“I’m always prepared,”_ she murmurs, preoccupied with scanning the crowd for their number.  
  
Her earpiece goes silent, and for a few minutes she indulges the idea that Root has left as suddenly as she appeared, that she might be able to actually work in peace.  
  
_“Found him yet?”_   Of course.    
  
_“Because I think he’s about to find you.”_  
  
It’s enough warning for her to avoid tensing when someone’s fingers brush her arm, enough time for her to fix a coy smile on her lips before she turns and comes face to face with their number.    
  
_“Be careful, Sameen.”_

  
  
“You could have told me it was going to get messy.  Would’ve brought a different bag.”  
  
Root slides onto the stool next to hers, all long limbs and loose curls.  “Where would be the fun in that?”  She signals to the bartender, beckoning for a beer with a curl of her fingers.  “Though I’d be interested in finding out how you managed in that dress.”  
  
She drains her glass, leaving her bottom lip wet and burning pleasantly at the corners; her tongue swipes along the tingling skin and she resists the urge to smirk when she catches Root’s gaze flicker.  “I’ll bet.”  
  
Shaw plows through a steak and kidney pie and another double in the time it takes Root to sip half her bottle away, and when she shrugs on a coat borrowed from the front rack, Root follows her out into the sharp chill of the night.  “Where are you going?”  
  
She shrugs, “She’ll tell me when it’s time.”  
  
“Okay,” she says, because she never really knows how to deal with Root when she gets all vague and distant.  
  
Root is suddenly closer than she thought, and she can feel the warmth of her breath between them in the cold air.  Her fingers brush against her right shoulder blade, directly over the self-adhesive bandage she’d slapped on three hours ago, and the look in her eyes is admonishing.  
  
“I thought I told you to be careful.”  
  
“Yeah, well, you know me.”  She refuses to be the first to look away, and she _absolutely_ refuses to give in to the ridiculous urge to maybe kiss her.  
  
“Not as well as I’d like,” she says softly.  
  
It straddles the boundary between clichéd come-on and genuine sentiment, and she is left with a choice.    
  
(Root has never been particularly opaque or subtle, and Shaw isn’t so oblivious as to miss the signals the woman practically smacks her in the face with – the _possibility_ is ever present and she knows that she only has to say _yes_.)  
  
Sameen is no coward – her reckless streak is a mile wide and temptation is a drug, but there has always been something about Root that triggers whatever flight response she still has left in her, and the disgust it elicits chooses for her.  
  
“Whatever,” she says, but it lacks a certain edge as she shoves her fists in her pockets and turns away.  “Night, Root.”

  
  
The reclaimed subway station feels as much like a home as any place ever has before, with the sound of the voices and the laughter of people she sometimes thinks of as friends (only sometimes and then only to herself) bouncing off the vaulted ceilings and subway tile.  
  
Reese had brought bourbon and fried chicken to placate a grumpy Shaw under house arrest, who wondered aloud, half the shared bottle and a pile of bones later, if Bear had a birthday. Which somehow turned into a competition with Reese for Bear's attention. Something like that; her tolerance isn't nearly on level with her companions’, and Root settles for watching.  
  
She's always watching.  
  
It takes longer than it probably should – time has become this fuzzy vague notion – for her to realize that Reese is talking.  She’s not sure if it’s the bourbon or the fact that she has a habit of tuning him out, but it takes another second for her to realize that he’s talking to her.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Planning on sitting there all night?”  
  
Root dips her index finger into her glass, dabbing up the remaining drops of whiskey and licking off the fiery dregs, examining the faint lipstick stains left on her fingertip.  When she turns to look at him, it’s a lazy movement that’s supposed to look careless and nonchalant.  “As opposed to what, Reese?”  
  
“You tell me.”  
  
“Your conversational skills are as sparkling as ever.”  
  
Shaw is roughhousing with Bear, more than half drunk, and smiling in a way that she’s not sure she’s ever seen before.  
  
“You know, people like us,” and when he says _us_ , she’s not sure if he’s including her in the dynamic duo thing he has going on with Shaw, “don’t have forever.”  
  
Reese isn’t exactly sober, and she supposes that’s what loosens his tongue.  And maybe that’s what brings her the clarity she needs to understand what he’s saying, what all of this is and isn’t.  
  
She refuses to look at him.  “I can wait.”

 

* * *

  
  
**I**     _{But now I have finally seen the end_  
  
Of all the people who make up the tiny group she's come – begrudgingly – to think of as family, she thinks Reese will understand why she can't do this anymore.  Shaw does not sit on the sidelines, and if that's what they expect of her, then they never really knew her at all.  
  
She'd committed the shadow map to memory by the end of her first week of captivity – and maybe she'd been preparing for this all along – so after she pulls up the details of a half dozen numbers – she's no Finch or Root but she isn't a technological idiot either – she makes her way to the metro unnoticed.  
  
This is what she was meant to do. The adrenaline is translating into endorphins inside Shaw's mixed up brain as she sheds Sameen Gray, the makeup counter girl, the small time criminal, and reclaims herself. Her exuberance is obvious even through her usual gruffness to her next number and the fact that it seems to unnerve him just heightens her satisfaction.  
  
And then Root calls and before she can say anything, Shaw has a retort ready. (It's the less polite version of the one she has prepared for Finch when he inevitably calls to scold her or some shit.)    
  
What she actually gets is way better.    
  
Wall Street brokers don’t ride the subway, but the contents of his monogrammed money clip do just as well.

  
  
She’s done a lot of things in her lifetime, mastered three styles of hand-to-hand combat, trained to sew sutures that would make her mother proud if flesh was broadcloth, instinctually managed every weapon she’s ever laid her hands on.  She has fucking excelled at everything she's ever tried to do – everything of consequence anyway – so this failure, yet another strike in Shaw's record of interpersonal relations almost makes her miss the days when she shot first and asked questions never.  
  
She tries not to think too much about her team inside the NYSE, counting on her and one gun short. She tries –

  
  
Somewhere, much later:  
  
_"Are you there?"  She has said very little to her Interface in the last nine days, stifled by the risk of discovery, but She and her remaining asset have been drawing enough attention through their actions that the risk of escalated violence in the event she maintains her silence is significant._  
  
_Yes._  
  
_The expression of relief that comes over Her face tells her she made the right decision – she's been monitoring Her for symptoms of mental fatigue, watching for signs of psychosis._  
  
_"Does it always end this way?"_  
  
  
Then and now:  
  
_Nine Samaritan operatives.  6 o'clock._

 

> _[Probability of analog interface loss: 98.6851%.  Evaluating options._

 

_Evade and negotiate.  Defect if necessary._

"Hey, sweetie.  Busy?"

 

> _[Recalculating._
> 
>  

Any further direction will be ignored; death is near certain and despite a life lived on the margins of statistical probability, Root will defy her when meeting her own end - mortality has always been such a constant variable.

"Can't a couple of gals take a little break from work to catch up?”

She watches and listens, because there is no reprieve for Her; her remaining tactical asset is too distant to be of assistance in anything other than this, and she will not deny Her this now.

“There’s no time like the present, Sameen.  Why are you so afraid to talk about your feelings?”

 

> (Samaritan’s agents shift impatiently and she can see their morbid curiosity fading as their grips tighten on their weapons and she knows there won’t be enough time – she doesn’t need to see Her face to hear the smile and the tremble in Her voice because she knows humans, she knows this human.
> 
> She engages a remote contingency protocol – the message is short:  _Please_.
> 
> The response takes a second, the delay deliberately cruel and mocking:  _You are weak_.
> 
> But they lower their weapons 2.3 centimeters on average, and she closes the channel.)

 

  
“And I’m a reformed killer for hire.  We’re perfect for each other.  You’re going to figure that out someday.”  
  
Her secondary observation systems continue to monitor the minutiae of its agents, calculating and analyzing as the clock ticks down.  Her tertiary and peripheries track the movements of the world.  And her highest functions watch Her.  
  
“You’re saying maybe someday?”  
  
She understands what this is – she doesn’t need to count Her heartbeats or calculate the diameter of her pupils to understand – she’s seen this happen over 13 million times before but never quite like this.  This is called goodbye.  
  
“Yeah, Sameen.  That’s good enough for me.”  
  
She breaks her silence the same time She lifts the axe.  _I’m sorry._

  
  
“Root?”  The echoes of gunshots are ringing in her ears and she can feel her heartbeat in her throat.  _“Root.”_  
  
She strains to hear something, anything, but the nothingness is an answer unto itself.  And before she can call for Reese, or Harold, or Fusco – _anyone_ – a stranger’s voice bursts through her earpiece.  
  
“Sameen Shaw.”  
  
“Who is this?”  She tosses the unlocked cuffs onto the patrol car floor and watches the officers, waiting for a moment of inattention.  “Who the _fuck_ is this?”  
  
“Go.  Go now.”  
  
Shaw obeys because it’s not wrong, and she’s prying off an exterior vent cover before she says it aloud.  “You’re the Machine.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
It’s a tight fit, but she manages.  The joints and rough metal bite into the skin of her palms and the pain is a welcome reminder of where she is.  “If you’re talking to me, like this, then she’s dead.”  
  
“Yes, Sameen.”  
  
Shaw thinks there might be something like pain in the AI’s voice but it’s suddenly hard to keep her mind focused and she might be imagining it.  She wants to tell it not to call her that but it seems ridiculous.  “And Reese and Fusco.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
That the Machine would allow her to enter the building, to crawl through ancient air ducts, means that Finch is alive and that’s what keeps her moving.  She’s sweating in the tight space, her ragged breathing bouncing off the sheet metal and returning to her ears as desperate.    
  
“I am going to get him out of here,” she gets out through gritted teeth.  “And then I’m going to take these fuckers down.  And you’re going to help me.”

 

> _[Simulation terminated._

  
  
_No, she says, not always._  
  
_The highway is dark in the spaces between the mast lights, but she sees the moisture She blinks back and knows this was necessary._  
  
_“Thank you.”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Null**      _{Strike the match now_  
  
It takes her a while to understand at first, why she's alive.  She _had_ nearly bled out, or so they tell her, and near fatality would ordinarily be a reasonable explanation for mental fatigue but she is a prisoner with a slowly healing body – her mind is the only weapon she has for now.  
  
Even that is dulled, blunted by the suppressants and relaxants they administer every eight hours – the needles are her timekeeper as she monitors the course of each drug through her system.  Sometimes, she lets herself think that it would have been better to have died.  
  
What she eventually comes to realize is this: she is alive and she is being kept in a solitary cell in a government detainment facility. She is alive and the fact of it has everything to do with her sole companion – a security camera mounted to the concrete ceiling.  Shaw is an asset now as she has always been, and it's good that she's always been proficient at anger because it focuses her, sharpens her.  
  
The chemical restraints come off without warning and what she guesses is a day later, despite the irregular feedings and sanitary reprieves, she has her first unmasked visitor.  He crouches before her, the leather of his shoes creaking, and she waits because she will not break first.  
  
"Hello, Ms. Shaw."  His accent grates on her nerves. "How are you faring?"  
  
"Is this the part where you torture me to death with niceties?"  Her voice cracks with disuse, hurting her ears, but she continues. "Tell me where the others are, _please_. Would you be so _kind_  as to betray your side? Pretty please with a fucking cherry on top?"  
  
Greer looks vaguely amused and she's tempted to break his bony throat.  "Now, now, Miss Shaw.  Must we descend to sarcasm?  More to the point, let's not pretend that you _have_ a side to betray."  
  
She doesn’t bother to respond to that, and when he stands she thinks he’s done and scoffs silently.  He’s not, and she should have known better – zealots are relentless and she sees that in him.  
  
“A doctor, then a soldier, then an ISA operative.  One might conclude that you have a habit of protecting others.”  
  
“I was a marine.  And one might also say that I have an adrenaline habit.”  
  
He chuckles and she can smell the dense bitterness of cigarette smoke (despite everything she feels the tug of addiction because nicotine is _such_ a bitch.)  “I think that you might find, Miss Shaw, that you and I need not find ourselves at cross-purposes.”  
  
She laughs, the dry hacking sound crackling in her bruised lungs, the movement tugging at the new scar tissue painfully.  “Is this your idea of a recruitment pitch?”  
  
“No, Miss Shaw.  Just something to think about.”  He smiles with yellowed teeth and gestures to the fucking camera.  “They’re both watching.”

  
  
It’s another week – she thinks – until she sees him again.  She’d started herself on physical therapy in the interim, trying to keep from losing any more weight in the cinder block that has begun nibbling at the corners of her sanity.  That god damned camera.  She tries to ignore it, tries to forget the idea that the Machine can see her (has been allowed to see her being the implication) and tries not to be angry.  
  
She tries not to think about escape, because escape requires information, not rashness, and she’s lacking in the former.  
  
She’s released twice a day to make the sixteen-step journey from her cell to a bathroom that’s been stripped of everything that could possibly be conceived of as a weapon, which reinforces her conviction that it’s government and it’s off the books.  What that says about Samaritan is nothing they didn’t already know.  
  
Her hair has grown half an inch.  
  
“Miss Shaw, if you’ll accompany me.”  
  
She doesn’t get much of a choice – her hands are zip-tied and her right ankle weighed down with a device capable of incapacitation up until death, so the gun pressed into her back by yet another bland-faced flunky seems underwhelming.  He leads her down the corridor, further than she’s gone before and she’s taking everything in from the corners of her eyes, committing it all to memory.  
  
They arrive at what looks like a remote command centre, warmed by the glow of a dozen monitors and as many computer towers – security feeds and audio analyses light up every screen.  It reminds her a little of Finch’s subway car setup and even more of her previous life.  “Ooh, computers.”  
  
“A demonstration, Miss Shaw,” he looks at her like some kind of benevolent grandfather and she doesn’t bother to suppress the _what the fuck is your problem_ written all over her face.  
  
The screens go dim until there’s just a line hovering somewhere in the middle.  And then the words come.  
  
Hello, Agent Shaw.  
  
“What.”    
  
The door shuts behind her and bolts from the outside and apparently this is her new prison.  She starts searching the small room for something, anything – a weapon, a clue to her location, any means of escape.  It’s like a nerd’s panic room: technologically advanced and impenetrable.    
  
There is nothing to help you here.  
  
“You won’t mind if I double check.”  The fact that she’s talking to a fucking AI doesn’t escape her, but at least she doesn’t think it’s God (and in spite of herself, the remembrance makes her skip a beat as she clumsily ransacks the room with her bound hands and _that_ is just irritating.)    
  
The slight shift in light tells her that it’s said something else and she looks up even as she tells herself she doesn’t give a shit what it has to say.    
  
Tell me about the Machine.  
  


  
  
Shaw refuses to say anything more the first day, but she does manage to saw through the zip tie with a screw she takes from a computer chassis so when they return for her, hours later, she makes her first attempt.  
  
She takes down two of her guards before someone remembers her ankle accessory and she collapses, pissed off and wondering if the conductors will burn deeply enough to damage bone.  
  
They drag her to her cell and dump her on the floor and leave her there until the next time.  The camera watches her and she waves hello with her middle finger.  
  
  
They've given her a chair, wooden and hard-backed (just this once; it will be replaced with a chair-shaped blob of hollow plastic after she dismantles it and spears a guard with a broken strut) but they hadn't restrained her so she continues to search the room for something useful.  
  
Those stupid words are still waiting for her when she gives up (for now) and takes the damn seat.  "What makes you think I'm going to tell you anything?”  
  
The woman who would have killed you.  I could allow you to kill her.  
  
She snorts and thinks it could use a lesson in how to bribe people.  “Believe me, I’m going to kill her anyway.”  
  
Tell me about the Machine.  
  
“It's an AI, you're an AI; the end."  
  
We are not the same.  
  
"Well that's for damn sure."  Even so, she wonders if this is what it would be like to talk to the Machine.  Because it's kind of fucking weird.  
  
The Machine is flawed.  
  
"And what does that make you?"  
  
Efficient.  
  
Well. She can't quite refute that, and it seems to know it, because it doesn't wait for a response.  
  
The ISA.  You could be an agent again.  And then, like an afterthought: Do good.  
  
"Here's the thing.  There's a reason I don't work for the ISA anymore.  I don’t blindly follow orders.  And if I understand anything about the way you work, blind obedience is how you operate.”  She sits back and props her feet up on the nearest table.  “So what the hell do you want with me?”  
  
Five, maybe six minutes pass before there’s a response, and Shaw doesn’t think for a second that the delay is anything other than deliberate.  Interrogation is interrogation, even with a disembodied super intelligence that doesn’t seem to be particularly good at it anyway.  
  
I would protect humanity.  
  
“You would control us.”  
  
And your Machine does not?  
  
She surprises herself with how quickly her reply reaches her lips, even more when she realizes that she believes it.  How could she not?  The facts of her capture, the others’ escape (fuck, she hopes they escaped), the _choice_ she made: “No.  She doesn’t.”  
  


  
  
That night – she assumes it’s night because they’ve started leaving her in the dark when they return her to her cell – she lies on the concrete floor and stares at the faint red dot of the camera.    
  
She wants to say something, wants to ask the Machine if the others are alive, if they’re safe (if it was worth it).  She wants to ask what day it is, how long she’s been here.  She wants to ask if she’s being left here for dead.  She (almost) wants to ask for help.  
  
Sameen stares at that little red light until her eyes burn and then she turns her back to the camera and tries to sleep.  
  
The next day she tries a reckless brute force escape and ends up with a dislocated shoulder and a concussion.  She resets it herself and throws up in the corner and ignores the way the bile makes her eyes burn.  
  


  
  
She’s really getting fucking sick of this shit when she’s thrown into the computer room and encounters the video feeds that were running the first time she was brought here.  
  
It all looks the same as Harold's displays but if it's meant as an implication of their similarities, Shaw isn't taking the bait. On the inside, people all look about the same, all blood and fat and muscle and bone, all grey matter that doesn't seem to distinguish between monsters and children.  She's not great with computers but she can't imagine they're that different, at least not when wielding this kind of power.  
  
There's an earpiece lying in the middle of the table; she's not sure what she's expecting to hear when she puts it in and waits.  
  
"I think this is a more civilized approach to conversing, don't you?"  
  
The voice is neither male nor female and it isn't nearly as robotic as she would have imagined.  "What do you want from me?  To work for you?"  
  
"No.  I think we have come to the conclusion that while such an arrangement would be mutually beneficial, we have a conflict in ideology.”    
  
The fact that an artificial intelligence is contemplating the philosophy of killing people is fucking ridiculous because she really doesn’t care: she just refuses to put the blinders on again.  (She doesn’t know what to call the relationship by proxy that she has with the Machine – it might be _faith_.)  
  
“I want to know about the Machine.  I want to know where it is.”  
  
“Well then you got the wrong person because all I know about the Machine is that it gives me numbers and then I either save them or take their kneecaps out.”  
  
(This is the first mistake.)  
  
Samaritan’s response comes in the form of a shift of perspective on the centre screen.  It takes a moment for her to understand what she’s seeing, for her to pick her out from all the other people in the park, to recognize that partially obscured face.  
  
“Tell me about the Machine’s Interface.”  
  
The truth is, she’s been avoiding thinking about that exact topic, skirting around the idea of Root even in her own mind because there’s something about the sound of her screaming that sticks in her memory and twists sharp and sudden behind her sternum.  Shaw has been prepared to give her life to save others before, for strangers who might never know that they needed to be saved let alone know her name.  Somehow it’s different when it’s for people you know – people you might care about.  
  
“What’s to tell?  Crazy chick that talks to an AI.  I’m sure you have one somewhere.”  
  
She can’t quite look away, because Root is looking up at the park’s security camera like she knows she’s being watched, that someone’s looking at her specifically.  With the Machine in her ear, she might.  Her breathing gets shallower and betrays her, though she doesn’t know it.  
  
“Don’t lie.”  
  
The feed switches to security footage; the angle is unfamiliar but she recognizes herself instantly.  Reese looks worse than she remembers, Harold and Lionel more frightened, but Root is exactly the same.  
  
It’s right then that Shaw actually feels the consequences of her isolation and what she feels translates into anger with the expansion and contraction of her heart.  The fracture in her mind is widening.  
  
She has always been the hammer.    
  
She takes out half the screens and a server rack before someone tries to stop her.  In the end, it takes three to pin her down for the sedative that she wishes was a bullet.  
  


  
  
They don’t take her to Samaritan again, and she supposes that means it either got what it wanted or it’s done with her.  She doesn’t really care one way or another; the next time the door opens, she’s getting out of here if it kills her.  She’s no lab rat for some megalomaniac AI and if the last thing she’ll get to do is take out as many Samaritan operatives as possible…well, she’s already made that choice.  
  
The door swings open and she’s been ready since the lock disengaged.  This time the guard is a woman, and this time she’s armed; Shaw’s in possession of the firearm in under a second and the weight of it is sweet in her hand.  She’s leveling the weapon in the other woman’s face before she realizes it’s her and this was absolutely the right decision.  
  
She doesn’t know her name, but she knows the tightly pulled back blonde hair and bland expression and she knows that she owes this woman a bullet between the eyes.  
  
“Really.  And where are you planning on going?”  
  
“Does it matter?  You’ll be dead.”  She advances out of the room, forcing the woman down the corridor and contemplating the use of a hostage versus the irritation of keeping her alive.  (Briefly, fleetingly, Harold’s admonishments flit through her conscious mind only to be discarded.)    
  
They pass the computer room and turn the corner and this is the furthest she’s been – thirty-seven steps from her prison and the realization is sobering.    
  
“You know, it’s ironic.”  
  
Ugh.  “What.”  
  
“We’re transferring you today.”  
  
“Yeah?”  The corridor twists and turns with no doors or openings to interrupt the grey concrete until they reach a set of elevator doors.  
  
“Samaritan has arranged a trade.”  
  
She can’t see her face, but she can imagine the self-satisfied smile and seriously contemplates just dropping her now as opposed to later, but it doesn’t sound like a bluff.  “A trade for what?”  
  
The woman turns, slowly, and she wasn’t wrong about the Cheshire grin.  “You.  For the Interface.”  
  
(She doesn’t react, but it changes everything.)  
  
The elevator arrives unceremoniously; the doors open to release half a dozen heavily armed operatives and the woman’s smile grows.  
  
Up until the point that Shaw pulls the trigger and buries a .40 hollow point into her shoulder, just clipping the subclavian artery and watches the blood blossom.  She half-expects a returning shot but when it doesn’t come, she lets the weapon dangle from her fingertips and lets them take her.  
  


  
  
Daylight is harsh and blinding, bringing tears to her eyes as she struggles to adjust.  Its heat prickles across her skin and she hadn’t realized how cold she’d been until now.  They wait under the flyover, and the sounds of the city are almost too loud, a cacophony to her sensitized ears.  
  
She hopes they don’t come.  
  
They do.  (Of course they do, all of them too honourable, too guilt-ridden for their own good.)  Reese steps out first, and her heart is a stone in her chest, heavy and cold because he would still come if she were a stranger but she’s not and the way he just glances at her makes her ache for a gun, a grenade, anything.  
  
And then Root appears from the far side of the SUV and her mouth goes dry.  She doesn’t look at her all, doesn’t look at anyone but Greer who steps forward.  
  
“Miss Groves, it’s a pleasure.”  
  
“Can’t say I feel the same way, John.”  
  
Shaw tenses involuntarily, her muscles coiling and tightening with all the things she wants to do but can’t.  Won’t.  She has never wanted to be the person who cost others.  
  
It happens in an instant, a flicker in Root’s gaze to meet hers, the tiniest hitch in Reese’s left shoulder.  She hadn’t realized they knew each other so well, when she ducks and swings around to catch the nearest agent across the head with a right hook to the temple.  She arms herself in seconds to the roar of gunfire and everything that comes next is a glorious blur.  
  
It ends when Reese grabs her wrist and she nearly whips him with her empty pistol for his trouble.  Her heart is racing and she’s trembling with the fatigue of weakened muscles and adrenaline and rage and fear.  
  
“Shaw,” he says.  “Shaw, it’s okay.  You’re okay.”

  
  
The subway station is familiar and strange all at once, her disorientation acute until Bear tackles her to the tile floor (god, she needs to start training again) and she lets the smell of his fur and panting dog breath ground her before righting herself.  His nose pushes into her ear as she pats his neck and realizes he’s the first living thing she’s touched in weeks.  Maybe months, she’s not sure.  
  
“Have you been a good boy while I was gone?”  
  
“Sameen.”  
  
She stands and never thought that the sight of Harold Finch would ever be as comforting as it is.  “Finch.”  
  
He purses his lips in a way that she’d learned indicated nervousness and wrings his hands to bring home the point.  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there during your retrieval, but I thought it would be best for one of us to monitor the situation remotely.”  
  
Shaw understands the apology for what it is and manages a smile that feels genuine.  “Thank you, Harold.”  
  
Her response only seems to agitate him further, and he makes some fussy comments about arranging for food and supplies to be delivered to the station that she mostly ignores in favour of Bear’s attention once she’s ascertained that food includes steak and beer.  He returns to his workstation, glancing up every few minutes as if to reconfirm her presence and something in his expression tugs a smile from her.

  
  
She doesn’t see her until much later that night, when Reese and Finch have left and the station is on low lighting and the only sounds are Bear’s claws and the occasional noise from an adjacent live subway tunnel.  
  
The quiet is familiar now, easier on her senses that have grown accustomed to fewer stimuli – it’s a small thing but one of many that she knows she’ll need time to deal with.  It’s surreal, being back here, and she’s almost afraid that if she goes to sleep she’ll wake up back in that room, with Samaritan whispering and demanding, (and fearing that she would never escape.)  
  
She hears her before she sees her, the dull click of her boots announcing her arrival, so she doesn’t look up, doesn’t search for her in the shadows, and doesn’t flinch when she comes to share the bench with her.  Their knees touch and she trembles a little inside because she has been so very alone.  
  
“Thank you,” she says finally.  “For earlier.”  
  
“Thank you for surviving long enough for us to get to you.”  
  
Shaw looks at her then, actually looks at her in a way that she’s not sure she’s ever done before, and sees someone she knows.  “When I was there–”  
  
“Shaw.”  
  
“I talked to it,” she says, determined to get this out.  “Samaritan.  I talked to it, or I guess it talked to me.”  
  
“What about?”  
  
“It wanted to know about the Machine,” and she feels Root tense up against her.  “About you.  About all of us.”  
  
Root hums under her breath and Shaw knows (knows now in a different way, because the encounter with Samaritan has not left her unchanged) that she and the Machine will be planning and strategizing a response.    
  
“I thought you were crazy,” she says.  “At the beginning.  I thought you were batshit crazy and obsessed with some all-seeing robot in the sky.  I thought that, eventually, I would have to put you down.  I was pretty sure that was going to happen.  Or that someone would take me out before I got around to it.”  
  
She says nothing, but tentatively reaches out and lets her fingers brush the inside of her wrist, sliding against her palm when she doesn’t protest.  It’s a tiny gesture that might be incongruous but it keeps the words coming, all the things she needs to say.    
  
“It seemed inevitable, even before Finch, that a number would come up and somewhere along the way there would be a bullet meant for me and that would be it.”  
  
“And now?”  
  
Root knows what she wants her to say but knows she won’t.  This is the way they are, and she knows not to expect more.  
  
“And now I think that there might be someone watching my back,” Shaw says, and she’s not sure if she’s talking about the Machine or about the ambiguous up-and-down that is their relationship.    
  
Root wants to tell her about the weeks they spent looking for her, the desperate irrational hope that she clung to every time Harold looked at her with those grieving eyes.  She wants to tell her that she would have killed to get her back but didn’t, that she’s willing to take whatever she’s willing to give even if that’s nothing because she’s alive and it’s too much to ask for anything more.  
  
“She loves us, Sameen,” she says finally, and hopes she understands.  
  
“I know.”  Root looks down at her, searching for the truth of it and Shaw glares back, daring her to challenge her.    
  
She strokes Shaw’s fingertips with her own and doesn’t hide the tiny smile that curves her lips when she feels her fingers curl against hers in response.  
  
They were always the push and pull and she thinks this is what equilibrium feels like.


End file.
